Melaina was born and raised in Bowie, Maryland, but has lived in the San Francisco Bay area for the last 10 years. Melaina has been painting, drawing and telling stories from the time she was old enough to pick up a crayon.

In 2001, she discovered the magical world of zines.  For the next 3 years, these zines, primarily short stories, were sent out to a limited mailing list of friends and family.

In 2004, Melaina discovered the blog community and quickly became obsessed.  She maintained four blogs for the next 3 years.  The only one that has survived is Death Maiden, a blog about her personal and professional experiences with death.

Melaina’s dear friend MariNaomi used to invite her to paint at MariNaomi’s studio.  Given Melaina’s joy of painting and her compulsion to write short stories and self-publish them in zines, MariNaomi talked her into trying her hand at comics.  The rest is history.

Melaina’s comics are autobiographical. Given her day-job profession, working with people who are dying, this subject-matter appears relatively frequently in her work. She has always had a leaning towards the morbid, laying in bed, contemplating the existence of ghosts for hours during her childhood. Melaina's mother had a seemingly psychic connection with the other side and would awake in a panic from dreams that predicted family members' deaths. Her mother's premonitions may have contributed to Melaina's growing fascination with that final stage of life.

Melaina is currently beginning a new series, entitled “The Bewildered Bisexual.” Melaina was married to a woman for 10 years and had been living as a lesbian for 14 years.  Since her divorce in 2006, she has been exclusively dating men. This shift in sexual orientation has taken some getting used to. So like she does with everything else – she has been using comics to figure it all out. So keep an eye out for those new comics.  More will be revealed!